1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus requiring a large number of settings to be configured, and a method of controlling the information processing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recent digital multifunction peripherals have been becoming more multifunctional and more sophisticated, so that they have an increasing number of setting items. Accordingly, on a user interface via which a user performs setting, the setting items are hierarchically displayed or displayed on different screens, which requires the user to perform setting on a plurality of screens.
Particularly when a digital multifunction peripheral is initially installed (during initial installation) or is replaced, a serviceman or an administrator has to configure various kinds of setting items, such as network-related ones, box-related ones, address-related ones, and user information-related ones, at a time for initial setup, for the digital multifunction peripheral. These setting items are required to be configured on respective associated configuration screens, as mentioned above, which is troublesome.
To solve this problem, there has been proposed a technique in which a reference apparatus is provided for enabling setting information stored therein to be referred to from a desired apparatus which the user desires to set up, and information extracted from the setting information is imported into the desired apparatus, thereby achieving setup of the desired apparatus (Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. H11-161441). This proposal is based on an idea that a group of devices for use under the same environment are only required to be set up in the same manner.
In the above-mentioned Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. H11-161441, information on setting items requiring configuration specific to an apparatus cannot be imported, as it is, into another, and hence these setting items are excluded from the range of setting items on which information is to be imported into the desired apparatus. Therefore, depending on the type of setting information, it is necessary to determine in advance whether or not the information may be imported from the reference apparatus. For example, IP addresses, which can be used as information for identifying apparatuses in a TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) network, are unique to the respective apparatuses, and hence the IP addresses are inhibited from being imported, as they are, into other apparatuses.
However, as described above, there are a large number of items of setting information to be configured for an information processing apparatus, such as the digital multifunction peripheral, so that it takes much time and labor for the user to determine on an item-by-item basis whether or not to import. Further, even as to the same setting items, there are various cases depending the uses of the apparatus, including a case where the same settings as those of the reference apparatus may be applied, and a case where the setting items may be configured specifically for each information processing apparatus.